Annie's New York Eats

San Francisco's Omnivore Books

Food query of the day: Do hotels put something awful in their tap water so that the poor exploited guest will have to use more and more bottled water from the mini-bar? San Francisco's Marriott Courtyard Downtown undoubtedly does. Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay uses nothing but moon dust (in a good way). Ritz-Carlton White Plains? We have another 24 hours in which to research. (Nasty substance, if used, may well be extracted from last night's sushi.)

But we did not mean to talk about bad taste and its various sources. Yes, we are back in New York now, but we never told you about Omnivore Books in San Francisco, and the time has more than come.

The fact is, old ("vintage" if you prefer) food books are kind of a mixed lot. Sometimes you can spend a good deal of money and a fair amount of time just to get something which, clearly, is going to do you no good at all. The recipes aren't useable--well, that comes with the "vintage" territory; when a recipe asks us for two and a half pounds of Brawn, we just laugh weakly and turn the page; cookbooks  before 1935 or so were, very frequently, manuals for professionals who didn't have to be told much about ingredients or techniques, and the recipes are, as a result, not the kind we're used to. (Of course we are excepting instructional books like The Joy of Cooking or Mrs. Simon Kander's The Settlement Cookbook, which were written for novice cooks or, as they used to be called, "Brides").

The disappointments of old food books are more along the lines of boring to read, full of factual error, and plainly written by someone (or ghost-written for someone) who knew nothing about food except that it frequently goes in your mouth. When we read about cream which is hand-whipped for fifteen seconds and thereafter stands in stiff peaks, or a "tomato surprise" salad served as part of a Christmas dinner in New York, our eyes glaze over and the book drops from our hands, whether we are reading the latest scrumptiousness from a Food Network celebuchef or Mrs. Goodbowels' Housekeeping Manual of 1853. And then we reach for our latest purchase from Omnivore Books.

And this is it. Courtesy Omnivore Books.

This is the whole store, clean and bright and roomy, with plenty of comfortable seats for you to sit around and read in. It's a nice space, but this picture does not show Ms. Celia Sack, who runs the joint and is its abiding spirit.

It's not that you can't get Mrs. Goodbowels or some other less-than-satisfying read from Omnivore; it's more that, under Ms. Sack's advice, you won't get that if you don't want that. This is how well she knows her stock, and how well she advises.

We have said before that San Francisco foodies are "giving", that they want to share the joy they have in discovering tastes and feelings and experiences. Ms. Sack is pretty much the model of this type. She doesn't intrude upon quiet examination of the shelves, but, once you've found that Bemelmans picture book about Europe after the war, or that 1936 first edition of Mrs. Rombauer's classic (or the signed MFK Fisher volume, or the 1955 bartender's guide) she will share your enthusiasm, answer your questions, and in general act like a well-read bibliophile host who has invited you over for a drink mostly because she wants you to appreciate her library, and she feels certain that you will.

This is Celia. Courtesy 7x7 magazine.

We were in San Francisco for about two and a half weeks this time, and we visited Celia twice; we snagged that wonderful Bemelmans book, one by Iles Brody, a terrific writer of whom we hadn't heard; two volumes by Nigel Slater, who we found, in the words of our friend Julie Powell, "difficult" but well worth reading (why do Englishmen delight so in comparing their food to bodily secretions?), and a book on eggs by Michel Roux, who, without even meaning to do it, spins a web of fiction thicker than that of Dick Francis (although it might just be that we feel bad over our consistent failure to pronounce or produce "Oeufs Mollets", and M. Roux just made everything worse.)

If you are in San Francisco, or anywhere west of the Rockies, drop everything and go to Celia Sack's Omnivore Books. If you are anywhere else, check out her website at http://www.omnivorebooks.com. Both your stomach and your mind will thank you.  

Oeufs Mollets. But not as made by us. 

California Eating

(Note: Annie has been in San Francisco and surroundings since February 4. When she had gone a week without blogging, we jovially suggested probiotics. Here is her somewhat waspish reply.)

Our trek to Northern California started out rather badly, since we persist in believing that a plane won't leave until the time it says it's going to leave. Little did we know that, if all passengers are aboard, a plane can leave any time it darn well likes, unless one of the passengers is enjoying a wedge salad and LaFrieda-burger in one of the in-terminal (and really great) restaurants at JFK's Terminal 5. In that case, one of the flight crew is left in the boarding area so that when the wedge-swilling passenger comes waddling up, he can give her the hairy eyeball and demand that she produce a boarding pass. Which we had left back at the steak joint with the bun from the LaFrieda-burger. The plane was half an hour late departing and, although the nice stewardess told us it was headwinds, the other passengers knew what was what and made their babies cry at us.

If we go on complaining like this there will be no time for complaining about everything else, so let us proceed--pausing to add that if anyone knows why a coast-to-coast flight so frequently makes us feel as if we are running a fever, we wish they would write and tell us.

When we landed in California we were met by Psychotronic Paul and went immediately to bed. (Those of you with long-distance sweeties will understand). The next morning, Paul trotted off to his screening room in Millbrae and we went in search of our Zip Car which, because we rarely listen to the news, was a spanking new Toyota Prius. Was our face red when we found we had to take a group of white-coated physicists with us to pick up La Skolnique in Santa Cruz! No, actually, it wasn't that bad, because Zip Cars assures us that every Toyota in the fleet has been checked out and has a working gas and brake pedal. And the fact is that the Prius is wonderful to drive, although our friend Toby in Pasadena is having some trouble getting parts for his. But Toby is a mere, although award-winning, Hollywood writer, and we think he probably screwed something up. (Give him work if you have any).

Our first meal on California soil was a cheeseburger at In-n-Out, plus the fries and shake of which the chain is so proud. As with most of our InO meals, we loved the burger, worshipped the shake, and wondered what all the fuss was about the fries; we personally think Five Guys are the best and McD's even better than that. (Psychotronic Paul says that Joe's of Westlake in beautiful Daly City is great too, but Paul has retired from competitive tasting since the advent of diabetes, so it may all be a lustful dream.)

We picked up La Skolnique and drove her back to Niles, where Psychotronic P. was running his famous Pre-Code Follies at the Essanay Silent Film Museum. On the way La Skol and I indulged in the fabulous Tandoori restaurant at Los Gatos--a place which looks like a formica-table hole-in-the-wall but will make you feel like Indira Ghandi, although don't put a bindi on your forehead for fun because it's rude. The rest of the evening was taken up by Psychotronic Paul's wonderful show, the immortal pitter-patterings of Kitten on the Keys, and a long, although unamusing, debate on the merits of La Skolnique's GPS system.

 

Dinner at Tandoori...a small snack, light on the carbs.
 

Next day found Paul sleeping deservedly late and La Skolnique and ourself treading a measure down Market Street to the Ferry Building and its famous Saturday Farmer's Market. No one has to tell La Skol and us about good food; although our youth was filled with pecan waffles and chocolate fudge sauce, not to mention Kitchen Sink sundaes at Jahn's ice cream parlor and frequent whole-chicken roasts catered by the United Aunts of La Skolnique, we have learned with age that good foods are much better for us. Therefore we loaded ourselves down with smoked fish sandwiches from Cap'n Mike's...

Top, smoked albacore tuna with golden beets and walnuts; bottom, smoked salmon with fennel, red peppers, and red onion.

...and the true jewel of the Ferry Building as far as we are concerned: the crystalline, pure, explosively trafe oysters (like a smack in the mouth from a wave at Miami Beach). 

 

Two dozen sweets at Hog Island!

"And all this," we explained to La Skolnique, "Is like 200 calories" but she demurred and said that maybe, if we also swallowed a shell or two as a probiotic chaser, it might be around there, but probably not. I reminded her that it was a huge load of phosphorus, which would either make us smarter or enhance our night vision, we didn't remember which. She explained that if it really worked like that we would probably be smarter by this time and we could not help but agree.

Dinner that night was at Canton restaurant, an elegant and just slightly seedy room in which Cantonese-American food is served in a manner which will remind you of your youth (if you are over 35). The spring rolls are crisp and a little greasy, with fresh vegetables insde; the House Special Won Ton soup is a mild but flavorful chicken and pork broth with plenty of wontons, veggies and a prawn or two. We personally enjoyed Crystal Prawns with Walnuts, which were, again, fresh (sometimes the walnuts get positively humid waiting around in th kitchen long enough, but this was much better). Canton doesn't have a very high reach, but almost all of their dishes are well-executed and even imaginative. It's also quite cheap.

On Sunday we moved to Harmony's apartment in the Mission. The Mission is a very old neighborhood in which people apparently eat very, very well and have very little money, but the two events are not connected for the same reasons they are in our life. Every now and again someone will be so happy about the food or so depressed about the money that they will rush out and paint a mural on a building. In New York, you would get shot for this (especially in The Giuliani Years) but in San Francisco you can do this at any time and be discovered by the New York Times.

 La Skolnique and I went out to 18th Street, which is known as the "Gourmet Ghetto" of the Mission, containing as it does a powerhouse restaurant (Delfina), an extraordinary bakery (Le Tartine), and the ephemeral Buy-Rite Grocery Store and Creamery.

 Buy-Rite is a very small store, not much large than the drinks-and-microwave area of a large gas station, but it is filled with bins and shelves and cases of wonderful food. There is produce, in- and out-of-season, which exists on the Tiffany level--i.e., each piece of fruit or vegetable is perfect, and you don't have to buy a pound to get one really good piece. The wines, cheeses, processed foods (not many of these) and beverages are all curated; someone, or a committe of someones, has tasted everything available on the market, and has chosen not the most popular or the most shelf-stable or the most environmentally clean product, but simply the best. There is Mexican Coke in bottles, for example, and there is Truffle Tremor goat cheese; there are cippoline onions, fresh and sweet, but there are no soggy canned cippolines nor "Coca Cola Family of Products" nor cheeses which might have met a goat in passing at one point in their lives but now only have a dopy-looking goat on the wrapper to comemorate this relationship.

There are salumi and charcuterie and appetizing, all made in-house, and there are lovely baked goods made from real eggs and dairy products and good flour. And there is the entire line of Straus Dairy products, which to me evoke both Ronnybrook and Milk Thistle back home but do not make me miss them. There are fresh herbs and dried spices. Most important, there are a crew of lithe young people who somehow manage to dress a bin of yams, pardon themselves for being under your feet, and discuss with you the true meaning of the term "buttermilk".

 These youngsters are the real gem of NorCal foodieism, if you ask us, because they seem to believe that food is to be respected, celebrated and shared, and they have not heard that in New York, anything that is hoarded grows more and more precious--so why should we tell you about our new favorite restaurant?

To finish up this day, we ended by having a very late breakfast indeed at Craig's Place, and we went out to an extremely late dinner at Ton Liang, possibly the best dim sum house in town. To symbolize the day in food we feature this picture of Fish Ball Soup with Spinach. There will be more to come after we digest a bit.

 
 

Leaving Our Heart (Yet Again)

Well now, we've been in San Francisco for over a week, and our arms are no longer tired.

We have been hanging out with Psychotronic Paul at the Harmony Hut which, since we are not Regina Schrambling, we will explain to you is the lovely Mission apartment of our friend Harmony. This is an apartment-swap on a celestial level, because the life and fun and good food and conveniences of the Mission have made both Paul and ourself fall in love with the place.

There are very few places in New York City where people live because the life is pretty good and not all that expensive. We came in for the last few years of the East Village being that way but, until they declare the Upper East Side habitable again (that'll be when Eli Zabar starts selling a loaf of bread for less than $16), we still think it's awfully precious compared to the Mission.

While resident there we did our laundry at a laundromat, ate world-famous fish tacos, walked around gawking at the lively shops and people, and bought stuff at Bi-Rite, San Francisco's wonderful little grocery store. We also found that foodies here can be any age and background, and what they love most is sharing a great food or finding out about a new one. In New York, foodie-ism, like everything else, is a status game.

Still, we don't understand the public transportation system. They have cable cars, street cars, buses, and underground trains, but they all seem to go to the same four stops and nowhere else. Also, we don't understand why they are called Bart and Muni.

Bart

Muni

This makes no sense to us.  

Three Hotels

September 11-18. As usual, we have scheduled the car service from the Ritz-Carlton San Francisco to come and haul us out of San Francisco Airport.  We do this for two reasons: one, because we don't think any cab driver in a free country will deal with our suitcase, known to us as The Blue Behemoth, and two, because it's so much more comfortable than a cab, although we do and will travel in plenty of cabs during our stay in San Francisco.

Why we hire the car is kind of like why we stay in the Ritz. It's not so much that we love luxury--which is highly subjective; to you it's unlimited caviar, to us it's a matched set of European soccer players in tiny, tiny Speedos--as that we have a need for reliable comfort.

And no, those soccer blokes wouldn't exactly be comforting (and may not be reliable).

To us, "comfort" doesn't mean that everything is perfect, but that you don't have to argue with anyone to get it fixed. If the TV doesn't work or they forgot to put a mini-fridge in your room or the housekeeper doesn't come to make up the room that day, it only means that this will be rectified...without you having to debate or threaten or apologize in order to get it done.

The Ritz, apart from this: Clean and pretty, decorated in the best of taste, with a thick wool rug that is wonderful on your aching tourist feet. A quiet and peaceful atmosphere, especially on the Club Lounge floor. And in the Club Lounge itself, the bar drinks, wine and fizzy drinks flow untrammeled, and the food is loaded onto the table for breakfast, lunch, cocktail hour and even the late night cocktail tasting. Ruggerio and his staff are as quick, quiet and understanding as ever. And if the lunch seems to feature the same egg salad popovers and tuna salad croissants every day, with the same crudites and the same cheeses on the side, what of it? They are all good to eat and, as on a cruise ship, they seem to be free--although you did pay extra to stay

on the Club floor.

Our room. No, really!

September 18-23. At some point in our life, that plan to rent a car in San Francisco and drive up to Napa will come true. Not this year, unfortunately. And so, with a dented self-respect and more than a hint of queasiness, we pack La Skolnique and The Behemoth into the Carey Town Car piloted by Mr. Tony Wong, and we headed outta town...this time to Calistoga, a tiny resort town in the North, to stay at Doc Wilkinson's Hot Springs Resort.

It looks bigger than this up close.

Doc and his missus came to this town in 1952 and either discovered the hot springs or made the most out of them, we never did figure out which. We are pleased to tell you that there are no cockroaches in the rooms, mostly because cockroaches don't eat cinder block and also because they get bored just as easily as you and I.

In addition, the spring water appears only in bottles, as sold at the local Cal-Mart (it is quite tasty), as a component of the old-fashioned mud baths (which we, as a diabetic, could not take part in, and which La Skolnique disliked, as being too heavy on the breathing apparatus), and as filler in the three enormous swimming pools--one, indoors, actually a hot tub; two more outside, one cool and refreshing, one warm and heavenly.

We ourself spent most of the time in the warm pool, and a little of it walking through the bungalow-dotted little town which, we discovered, had been named by a fellow who wanted to call 

it the Saratoga of California but was too drunk to say it properly. 

It was also quite near the place where the Donner Party...couldn't find a Holiday Inn, and also near Santa Rosa, 

in which the Hitchcock film "Shadow of a Doubt" was filmed. 

If you do  not have a rental car, this is roughly all you can do, except for eating heavy meals at the four or five too-fancy-for-the-town restaurants and listening to the comforting noises of your travel companion despising you.

September 24-31. It's a long way down to Santa Cruz, but getting there (in another town car) is fun, and even better when we come to check in at the splendid Hinds House. A new idea (to us at least), the Hinds House is a big old Victorian house, a landmark in fact, which had been made over to accommodate ten to fifteen traveler in a series of plain, bright rooms, two with private baths and the others with shared baths.

Lovely house!

It isn't a bed and breakfast...just a comfortable (there's that word again) house with a fully-equipped kitchen, a laundry room, three large "public rooms", perfect for working on your computer or just on a good novel.

You do your own housekeeping, and you can't stay for less than a week, but we (you know how we are) stayed in the best room in the house for seven days AND IT ONLY COST $660 WITH TAX which, if you were wondering, is as much as one night at the Ritz can cost. It is a fine new experience and we would recommend it to anyone, except not next February, because that is when we plan to return.

Three California Farmers' Markets

One thing we needed to do on our California trip (which is ongoing, as we are writing to you from our lovely room at the San Francisco Ritz-Carlton, unofficial sponsor of this blog, don't we wish) was to visit Farmers' Markets.

We had heard so much about them, and, although we do not wish to minimize the love we have for our own Union Square Green market or the wonderful Rhinebeck Farmers' Market, or even for the roadside stands at home in the Hudson Valley, we knew that California was going to offer us something special: produce, especially tomatoes, from a non-blighted region of the world.

No blight here, pally

See? The 'maters are bright, like stars at night, deep in the heart of Cali. No, no, stop singing; this is serious business.

The fact is that back East we've been having a frightful time with the Blight, and it isn't a laughing matter; home gardeners such as ourself had to pull up and then bury blighted tomato plants, but the commercial farmers have been losing their year's profits, and something like that could put a farm under for good.

Anyway, the tomatoes here, heirloom for choice, are gorgeous. We and La Skolnique had an heirloom tomato salad at almost every meal as we trekked from San Fran to Calistoga and then back down to Santa Cruz; they were available everywhere and, especially when drenched with good cold-pressed California olive oil (Stonehouse for choice) and topped with Burrata cheese (a very good brand is available at Trader Joe's) and then further topped with fleur de sel, they are fancy eating indeed and pose very little health trouble, even for ourself and psychotronic Paul.

The Ferry Building Farmers' Market, Saturday--For San Fran foodies, this tends to be The Big Event, and why not? The setting is wonderful--The Ferry Building, a construction which survived the great earthquake of 1906 and decades of urban blight following, has been brought back to a shining ideal, set about, disconcertingly, with palm trees and trams. It is an actual transportation center, but the Staten Island Ferry never looked this good. Also, it is filled with really good food shops; not just good, considering it's a tourist site, or good, considering it's a scenic point, but as good as any in New York City and, beyond doubt, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Boston, or Miami. (Those are the cities to which we have traveled in adult life, and we stand by our statement.)

On Saturdays the parking lot and surrounding sidewalk become the largest Farmers' Market we have ever seen, and we have seen a bunch of them. In fact, it is a bit crowded, and if you want to get some serious shopping done, you'd better bring a capacious backpack or even a rolling cart. Here are some of our favorites:

Avocados, unbelievably inexpensive...wot? They grow them here?

Strawberries in late September...and they were as sweet and delicate as the ones we had in June

 

Shop under the beneficent gaze of the Mahatma, who, on non-market days, overlooks the parking lot with equal serenity

The stand-out was Dirty Girl Produce, which is grown near Santa Cruz. They use a technique called "dry farming" which somehow induces the roots of the tomato plant to spread themselves deep in the soil and to thirstily trap every drop of moisture. This leads to a tomato of deep flavor and rich juices, the very opposite of watery, and splendid for every type of use, from canning to eating out-of-hand. It is, of course, an economical and planet-friendly way to garden, and we admire the brains of the gardeners every bit as much as we admire the taste of the fruit itself. 

Those persons interested in good-looking young women will also tip the fedora to whatever genius hires the beautiful girls who offer a taste (of the tomatoes) to passers-by. It's an old marketing trick, but a good one.

The Santa Cruz Farmers Market, Wednesday--This one was just as crowded, but set in a nondescript parking lot which seemed to typify what Santa Cruz is all about. I's a town of scrubby cheap coffee shops and world-class home decorating boutiques; a town too poor for a branch of Sur la Table, which amply supports the better and independent Chefworks. Santa Cruz is the kind of place where generations-wealthy people keep up the income by renting out rooms in their homes, and gentle people with flowers in their hair can tell you about the last time they went back East, in that old van, man, to see that righteous music festival on Yasgur's farm. (You might be forgiven for thinking they indulged in the brown acid.)

But Santa Cruz's agricultural backbone lies in one of the most fertile parts of the Central Coast, and the farmers who inhabit the Wednesday market have great new ideas and sound old ones for bringing in the sheaves. The aforementioned Dirty Girl Farm sells here, as does the Happy Girl company (oddly, unrelated) which serves preserved goods such as beautiful peaches, "smashed" heirloom tomatoes and the spiciest heirloom tomato juice available. We are going to weigh down our luggage with some of these, but you can order on line at the website.)

The Farmers' Market is like the town, a little rough and tumble but with a clear knowledge of what's good and how much the people need it. Produce abounds; there are few stalls for prepared food or cheeses, but, taken in combination with the good cheeses, condiments and dressings available at Trader Joe's or the local Whole Leaf, the Cruzans can keep their bodies nourished and their wallets full. 

We purchased "tree" oyster mushrooms, about fifteen thumb-sized baby artichokes (for Santa Cruz is only about five miles from Castroville, Artichoke Capital of the World), yet more heirloom tomatoes, and a passel of herbs, all of which went into a memorable midnight supper which we fed to Psychotronic Paul from the kitchen on Hinds House, about which we will tell you in another post.

Ferry Building Farmers Market, Thursday: Back in San Fran, we discovered that the Thursday market was a little different: smaller, and more focused on prepared foods, which were far more appropriate to our status as guest-without-kitchen.

Cap'n Mike's Sandwich Board. Iconic sandwiches made with some of the best smoked fish in America.

Cap'n Mike, his own self

These sandwiches, made as they were fresh by Cap'n Mike's comely helpers, were more than delicious; as with the best-made sandwiches, we found them to be even yummier the next day, after being kept under mild refrigeration. (It allows the flavors to mix). Cap'n Mike sells a variety of smoked fish and we would recommend every last one of them. He also supplies Russ and Daughters in New York, so you know his product is pretty damn great.

La Skolnique and we say: A votre sante!

Yes, we drank sauerkraut juice--it was a tradition with our late Dad, although we never understood why, because the sauerkraut juice from our Waldbaum's at home was merely pickling brine, and not in the least tasty. Then we had a long talk with the proprietress of Farmhouse Culture sauerkraut, who let us in on all the secrets of fermentation, probiotics and other great stuff which comes served up in every spicy little jigger of juice. How much happier to eat a pint or so of the crunchy, salty/sweet/hot, delicious kraut itself! We have munched our way through two pints in the past week, and our stomach has never been happier.

So, Annie, Where'd You Eat?

We would first like to make the point that we are still in California.

Yes, that makes it around four weeks and no, obviously we don't have any work to get back to.

And yes, we are having the time of our life.

One of the high spots is Psychotronic Paul, a friend of La Skolnique's with whom we happily picked up an acquaintance last year. Now Paul is a Pal and we have been "hanging" with him through the hot tubs, coffee houses, sushi joints and rented cars of our long NorCal vaykay.

A musician and cinema scholar, Mr. Paul is also an indefatigable eater although slightly slowed by a recent diabetes diagnosis (like ourself). He knows more about pre-code animation than any other three people living, and he is one of these soigne men-of-the-world with whom one enters an automobile at 5:30 not knowing whether the evening will bring food, pleasure, music, Greek dancing, hat-wearing, or a movie about the early years of the actor George Hamilton. Whatever happens, one is sure that it will be fun.

Of course La Skolnique has been along for much of this ride, usually telling us to walk rather than take a car. For the last week in Santa Cruz she has been on her own turf and loving it. If we have bought less than 95% of the contents of her local Trader Joe, it is not from her lack of selling us on the merch. (The TJ in Danbury simply doesn't have all this great stuff). 

As for leading us to water, La Skol generally does that in order to make us float around and sometimes kick our legs, after which we feel better and can walk even further than before.

But you readers are interested in food, and why should we deprive you? Therefore, the rundown of our favorite places so far.

1) We have now eaten at Gary Danko twice, lifetime, and, although the food is wonderful and the service and ambiance pretty much the best we've ever experienced, we still call Ton Kiang the best restaurant of our stay thus far. It's a bright, modern dim sum house, built on the lines of a Hong Kong-style banquet hall; little did we know that it is usually jammed, with a line out the door to wait for table. When we discovered the place, all we knew was that it was clean and bright, and that's about all we needed right then, also, unlike most of the other places on this restaurant-heavy stretch of Geary Blvd., it was open. It wasn't until we were handed a dim sum menu and a regular menu, heavy on the seafood, that we realized we had discovered a gem--and one of the most popular restaurants in San Francisco.

A delicate repast for two.

There were dumplings, of course; pork and chive, shrimp and pea tendril, duck and the lightest possible veil of dough. There were pork buns with an interesting sweet dough. There were fried dumplings and steamed dumplings and other thing which weren't at all dumplings but were quite wonderful. 

Best of all for us, there was a dish of Mu Shu Pork which, for the first time in years, brought back our memories of our mother's cooking. A Polish/Jewish cook by tradition, she hated cooking the heavy, fat-laden food of our people and re-created herself as a serious Szechuan cook. 

If you don't believe that a City University professor living in the suburbs can produce fine Asian cuisine, you didn't know Mom--or the flocks of Chinese businessmen, business connections of our Dad's, who vied for invitations to our house, and a taste of home. Mom's Mu Shu (and it never was anything but Pork, as the traditional recipe had it) was light and greaseless. The "tree ear" mushrooms were chewy and the tender bamboo strips had a delicate flavor as well as texture, The scallions were never slimy, just fresh and pungent. And there was no slick brown sauce left on the plate, either; a simple, quickly-prepared stir fry like this isn't meant to have a sauce. You just roll it up in pancakes--not thick scallion pancakes like something from the deep-fryer at a country fair, but delicate, almost-transparent rounds of rice flour and water, lightly daubed with plum sauce. The finished bite should leave your mouth fresh and hungry for more.

So, to put the thing in simple terms, we REALLY liked the mu shu pork. And everything else. So far we've eaten here twice.

2) I Love Sushi, Santa Cruz. Please understand first that we are a veteran of sushi. Ever since that night in the winter of 1981 that La Skolnique erroneously pointed out that sushi had like no calories, we have been bolting the stuff like a cannibal piranha.  It is, in fact, our default meal. So, on a night without La Skol or Paul, we wandered into this bustling joint which everyone knows about near the water at Santa Cruz.

We ordered three rolls, which made everyone giggle. Why? We soon found out.

This is actually one roll. Jassica, are you seeing this?

Yes--it was, for the first time in our experience, that legendary monster of th West: CALIFORNIZATION OF FOODSTUFFS. This is what happens when something thhat might be, say, a lamb chop back in New York, becomes Meat Extravaganza on Hardwood in the West, after being accessorized with three vegetables, three sauces, a couple of starches and possibly something on the side called a "tian" or "compote". The heyday for such dishes has been over for a while now...so we thought...but this sushi bar (a great favorite amongst the starving students of Santa Cruz, as you can imagine) never forgot it. If something can be rolled in rice and tempura-fried, you'll find it here; if you were hungry when you came in, you can order two rolls and take home a doggy bag. Was it good? Yes, very. But it was a fish-chunk-mayo-and tempura-fried-rice joint, not a sushi bar. We are always willing to be educated, but this was ridiculous.

Next: The Farmers' Markets. Heigh-Ho!

The Mad Men Diet

Our friend La Skolnique had never seen "Mad Men" until this past Sunday. She enjoyed it, despite our breathless narrative ("See that woman? She married the white-haired guy when the red head couldn't even get a ring out of him. Oh wait, sorry, that's actually someone else.")

When it was over she turned to me and said, "What I wanna know is, what were they eating?"

"What were they...?"

"That's right. New York had so much great food then. The dairy restaurants. Little Italy. And this guy lives at Ossining. I've read Gourmet magazines from then. Was he having swell dinner parties with Beef Wellington? Was everyone eating TV dinners? What?"

And so, for the benefit of La Skolnique as well as the rest of you, we will review everything we know and/or have guessed about The Food of Mad Men.

1) Food is status. 

Well, of course. 

Peggy the newly-promoted copywriter (okay, not so new), may be going back to her secretarial roots and enjoying a burger with a boy in a Brooklyn tavern now, but pretty soon she'll be having a steak with a man at Manny Wolfe's, which is what Smith and Wollensky used to be. 

When high-strung Accounts man Pete "Humps the Camel" Campbell throws his young wife's chicken out the window of their Upper East Side co-op, they both know perfectly well that they can get Le Pavillion to send something up; after all, Pete is Old School and his wife is New Money, and they've both been dining there since their teenage years.

Drunk, patrician Roger Sterling assumes that his top Creative, Don Draper, hasn't eaten oysters very often, because Draper's accent betrays a slightly rural twang; Don, who reads attitudes like we read the weather report, neatly turns the table on Roger and shows him up to be an over-indulgent slob by daring him to eat several dozen oysters, oceans of Scotch (not that that's anything new to Roger) and then walking up twenty flights of stairs. The outcome is not pretty but it certainly does make the point of who's the greenhorn and who's the slicker.

At home, Don's beautiful, sociopathic wife Peggy makes "'Round the World" dinner parties with Heinekken beer, Rijstaffel, and, yes Beef Wellington. And, at a children's birthday party, a single mom saves the day by bring in a frozen Sara Lee cake when the bakery birthday cake can't be used; the cake (and the lady) are ridiculed by the other mommies.

2) Food is love.

More about Betty's kitchen, resplendent in its walnut-and-plaid: Not that much good food comes out of it. 

Betty herself, anguished at sacrificing her fashion-model figure to yet another pregnancy, treats herself to Melba toast, cottage cheese, cigarettes and Scotch; on a hot night, she has Swedish meatballs or chicken salad waiting at home for Don's late dinner. He's not very interested in food either (Scotch, cigarettes, women and power nourish him so much better), so he just sits down and digs into the bowl of something-or-other without a qualm. Our late Pops, and ad man himself back in the day, would call this the Gentile diet, but it certainly did keep Don and Betty trim. Of course, Betty's withholding food (and love) from herself, Don, and the baby; she also frets that daughter Sally will be plump as a grown woman, and unable to find a man. Certainly Sally needs someone to love her; Grandpa Gene and his chocolate ice cream helped a little, but what will she do when he's gone?

La Skol needs to go to dinner now (we are enjoying the waters in Calistoga, CA) so we'll stop here and continue on the next post.

Why is This President Different...?

We have never seen it yet to fail: after weeks if not months of planning, we finally get on that plane, travel to that city, check in to that hotel, and collapse on that bed. (We do this when we travel anyplace further away than Red Hook).

Then...usually in the wee small hours of...we wake up. And we lie in that expensive, 400-thread-count bed, deeply regretting everything we've ever one in our life. Especially taking this trip.

Our late Dad shimmers in the ambient air, seeming to ask us: "So you were already going broke at home...why did you have to schlep 3,000 miles, to go broke faster?"

He's right. (No he isn't, but we're in a weakened state). And so, because we don't have anything else to do until morning comes and we can restore the tissue at our (incuded) American breakfast (which means you can make a hog of yourself), we're thinking about Why is This President Different from All Other Presidents.

We don't mean that he's African-American. That's the easy answer.

No, we mean; why do people, a substantial amount of people, not all of whom are institutionalized, question facts about this president, that they would never question about another? His place of birth? Whether or not he just said what he very clearly just said, and what we all heard him say? 

Whether or not he has the right to address a joint session of Congress without being insulted?

The fact that Mr. Obama is deprived of these rights is lunatic.

The man won his election, less arguably than some. He had a better background, more appropriate to a President, than most. (Scholar, lawyer, teacher, writer, politician).

He also ran a cleaner race than most, and has behaved in a more presidential manner than any we can remember.

By any measure of logic, he should be given the respect as any other President; and yet he is treated with disrespect of a kind which we have rarely seen in this country.

The kind of disrespect is the important point here. We personally disliked and even hated George W. Bush's effect on this country. We wished for Mr. Cheney's heart, what there was of it, to go pfffft (and before he had so misunderstood the Constitution as to proclaim an Imperial Successor to Mr. Bush. And he could have done it. You know that).

We have, in short, treated all kinds of presidents and vices with disrespect. (We hope you have figured out that in this blog, "disrespect" is not a verb). We were reverent of John F. Kennedy, we personally admired Jimmy Carter, we thought Bill Clinton was hot (we like big guys), but we have made tough comments about everyone else, and, when people made noises about "respect for the office," we snorted.

But "birthers" and screaming congressmen and the sort of people who keep denying the obvious are doing more than insulting the President on a personal level. They are denying his right to be where and who he is. They are negating his existence.

They are, in fact, the Georgia white man staring at the black man's application for Voter Registration and saying, "What's that you have in your hand, boy? I can't make out the words."

They are the Alabama waitress at the lunch counter serving the white man who sits next to the black woman, and thn looking through the black woman as if she doesn't exist.

They are the real estate agent "redlining" a certain neighborhood and ignoring the African-Americans who want to buy homes there, the Madison Avenue shopkeeper who won't let a single black man into his store no matter how much he rings the doorbell, the Boston cabbie who won't pick up a black fare even if there are no white ones.

A long time ago we wrote an essay on racism. Our conclusion was that the practice of racism requires a systematic denial of the obvious. Insanity also requires this, by definition.

So this is what we think is happenning in this country. It's not that the opposition is making fun of Mr. Obama. They are doing far less in that way than people did to Bush the Second (who, after all, is the first President to have a non-sympathetic portrait of himself in a full-length commercial movie while he was still in office.)

They are merely treating him as if he does not exist.

This scares us.

.

The French Laundry: A Response from Phoebe Damrosch

From: Ann Berrol 

Subject: How I Got Into Trouble at The French Laundry

To: Phoebe Damrosch, author of Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter

Date: August 25, 2008

Dear Phoebe,

I loved your book and read it several times. 

Now, I am a fairly  sophisticated diner, and I have been to good restaurants before, but I  had never been to per se or The French Laundry, and, in part because of reading your book, I decided to make a reservation at TFL for my  50th birthday party.

Not that I hold you responsible for what happened.

As far as I can see, I might have taken you too literally. Or maybe I  misunderstood. But the trouble started when we sat down to dinner, a party of 4, and the Captain asked what we would have to drink, and I asked for a virgin--you know, boozeless--Mary.

The captain explained that TFL did not have a bar. He did not offer to get me a glass of tomato juice. Maybe the kitchen didn't have tomato juice. Maybe they didn't have tomato water (for consomme). It wasn't on the menu.

I say that the Captain should have worked with me a little further and even offered to have a tomato squeezed for me. (I do that at home all the time. It makes a nice drink.)

Now I'm writing to you because half the foodies in New York, including everyone who reads my blog and everyone who reads SERIOUS EATS, are  calling me a Yahoo for even expecting this. About ten percent of all respondents say that, by asking for a virgin mary, I deserved all the foul treatment I could get at the hands of the waitstaff.

About another 30% say that, at prices like that, I should have demanded anything up to and including TK's favorite tomato plant uprooted and sent to my hotel room in Yountville.  This also seems extreme.

What do you think, Phoebe? I trust your response and, whatever you say, I promise I will print it in my blog and accept the reprimand (if that's what you send).

I hope everything is very well with you and, even if you don't have a chance to answer this email, I thank you very much for writing a wonderful book.

Ann,

Thank you for reading the book, for writing with your hilarious story, and for your patience in awaiting my response. 

As for your question: I wonder if they fully grasped your disappointment.  I have a feeling that if they knew how much you wanted the Virgin Mary, they would have made it happen.  Maybe you cheerfully drank something else and they thought you were just as happy with that?  I'm sure that people are always asking for cocktails and it would be hard for them to juice a few apples every time someone asked for an apple martini or ice an espresso every time someone wanted a White Russian.  Still, I am 100% sure that they would have made you the best Virgin Mary you had ever had if they knew that this trauma was the memory that would stay with you. 

You'll just have to go back for your 60th!  And make sure to make a request when you make your reservation.

Chow.
Phoebe.

Westward Ha! or, A Final Review

Well, I've transferred all the pictures and finally unpacked my ginormous blue suitcase (always referred to as The Behemoth), so let's take a few minutes to review the NorCal vacation.

Travel is No Pleasure

Sure, I was right on time to pick up my rental car at Kingston, and the drive to JFK only took two hours, but then I found that the drop off for the car was "off-site"...not to mention having to walk The Behemoth through several blocks of unpopulated airport space, up and down a few elevators, and into an odd little offshoot of the MTA called the Air-Tran. Finally showed up in front of the JetBlue terminal at 5:45, plane scheduled to depart at 6:00. "Can I still make the flight to San Francisco?" I screamed at the sky-hop, who nodded sadly and smooshed a sticker onto The Behemoth. Right he was; the 6:00 had been rescheduled for 9:30. It shouldn't be a total loss, however. Once aboard, the Terra Chips were on the house. (On the plane?)

At the Ritz

Yes, I paid to have a driver meet me at SFO. It might have seemed silly, but, since the plane got in at 2:00 AM local time, and SFO doesn't have a lot of cruising cabs like JFK, it turned out pretty well...my driver handled The B. and I sat in front and gawked at the sights of nighttime San Fran. Then we drove up under the portico of the Ritz-Carlton. Holy goshdarnit! Soon found my Double Deluxe Club-Level room to be beautiful, and there were cookies and milk waiting for me in the lounge. Did not manage to take my glasses off before I fell asleep.

Tony Bennett was So, So Right

Sure, I can't agree with everything the man did--that supporting role in The Oscar would have been a bad choice for anyone, including Moe of The Three Stooges--but, when it came to expressing himself on the subject of the city by the bay, I couldn't have said it better.

The next few days found me exploring SF on foot (when downhill) and in cabs (every other way). Never went into those little cable cars which reach halfway to the stars, but was interested to find them disgorging and taking on passengers just about anywhere, including major intersections, stopping traffic in four directions. You couldn't do that in New York, not and hope to have people like you for it.

Favorite places: 

The Ferry Building, a model of what the city center food market/food court/tourist magnet ought to be. 

Chinatown, with lots of cheap and even some valuable. 

Union Square, where you can get anything you forgot to get in your last trip to the hometown mall.

 Japantown, a truly amazing American community (and source of great bento supplies).

 Nob Hill, which reminds me of what Upper Fifth Avenue could have been like if we New Yorkers didn't have at least a little bit of humility. 

The Financial District, which is attractive, but which I like most because that's where I took my first walk in town.

And, hey--I too have been terribly alone and forgotten in Manhattan.

More Ritz

It cost more to stay on The Club Level, but I chose this option because a) the wifi was free, b) I'd have the services of a concierge, and boy would I need them, and c) there was pretty-much-continuous food service throughout the day. Light food service, to be sure (Continental breakfast, light lunch, hors d'oeuvres, desserts), but I really like grazing.

Which, as on a cruise ship, wasn't exactly free (that's what you paid your Club-level upgrade for) but it felt free. And you could make a total hog of yourself under the indulgent eye of the concierge. 

(Note to JC: I know, you always wonder if you should ask the concierge for female companionship, or is this chore more appropriately left to the doorman? And how much do you tip? Well, I picked up a cab driver my first day there   

I mean, I did not feel the need of such buffoonery--

so I can't help you with that quandary.

 I will say that the concierges were so obliging, and I got so into the habit of asking for their help, that when I found myself missing The Beautiful Daughter I debated going to Crystal or Ruggiero and having them check on Fed Ex rates to ship one smallish teenager coast-to-coast.)

Anyway, the food thing turned out really well since I am always intrigued by the idea that people are making food for me and I don't know what it will be. Camembert or Manchego at lunch? Foie gras with bacon or pickled herring at dinner? Ceviche or watermelon-and-feta in the oversized martini glasses?

Some things remained the same each day--there were always excellent tuna and egg salads at lunch, cold soups in shot glasses at dinner, a wide range of cereals at breakfast--and, if nothing else interested you, there were fresh fruit, cheese, and good bread at every meal. 

Plus, the bar was open at lunch and dinner, and the non-alky choices were free at all times. This is how I spent ten days immersed in San Pelligrino water, sometimes mixed half-and-half with the Ritz's very strong and unsweet lemonade. And, yes, the virgin marys were wonderful. Even better, the barkeep grew to recognize me, and would offer to make me one whenever he saw me.

At first, La Skol was a little shy about all the service and attention. When she was helped out of her cab by a uniformed doorman who greeted her by name, she was completely creeped out. When five different Ritz employees said, "Glad to have you with us, Ma'm'selle la Skolnique", she accused me of bribing the staff. (I didn't have to! That's the Ritz!) but soon, as the warm sun of respectful attention and unlimited caviar crept into her bones, La Skol was completely down with the Beulah-peel-me-a-grape vibe. And, as Dan Ingram used to say, loving it.

She also introduced me to the Fitness Club (which I had somehow neglected to know the existence of, having only been at the hotel for 5 days) and a lovely little indoor pool with locker room.

More Eats

La Skolnique has mentioned some of these places, but I'll revisit them, with photos. The Acme Chophouse, Traci des Jardine's flagship in San Fran, looks like a rockin' sports bar (and so it should, being adjacent to AT&T Park on a pretty boulevard called 24 Willie Mays Plaza), but has an eating ethos far above that. We ordered a fairly large meal and everything was exquisite, from the lamb chops which we expected to be familiar (they were un-familiarly transcendental) to the steak tartare (which was soft and smooth but never greasy or pasty, and the meat for which had surely been cut, not ground, two minutes after the order hit the kitchen.) Here's the food porn:

Salad with Little Gem lettuce, with which I am now in love.

Steak Tartare, surrounded with toast. Quail egg in the middle.

Shoulder Lamb Chops. So good, La Skolnique even ate the arugula, which she usually hates as much as Republicans do.

Hully geez, Risotto and Chanterelles with Fried Squash Blossom Stuffed with Ricotta. That was the Acme Chophouse: dishes which you could have made at home, just not as splendidly. Has Chef des Jardines put out a cookbook yet? I'm off to Amazon to check it out.

You could say that the Acme was an unexpected surprise. The delicacy of the flavors and textures didn't scream "sports bar"--but you could just imagine a boothful of Universe Masters chowing down on he-man food after a big win, or consoling themselves after a loss. But the restaurant served us well as a first-dinner-together for two old friends still getting used to each other. It was a wonderful meal.

Frida and Her Bandito

Okay, I'm fairly sure that, whatever Frida Kahlo ever called her husband, Diego Rivera, it wasn't "bandito". And she called him plenty. As I told La Skolnique, I kept waiting for  Frida's masterwork, "I Hate Diego and I Don't Care if That Big Fat Frumpus Never Calls  Me Again".

Diego was a womanizing jerk who slept with Frida's sister and probably most of her friends and kept asking for an open marriage and then for a divorce as she went through an agonizing series of miscarriages and back surgeries. 

He also looked like--a most unattractive fellow--and any earthy-minded woman touring through the Kahlo show at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art would have to ask herself, "What on earth did this geek have? In addition to genius?"

Kahlo's portrait of Rivera is so alive, you expect him to reach up and take the frame from around his neck and go chasing the nearest babe or painting a mural over the Robert Rothenberg display.

Her other pictures are static, like something from a nightmare glimpsed in a flare of lightening. (Sin Esperanza and Henry Ford Hospital will live in my dreams). Some, like The Suicide of Dorothy Hale, are so filled with pain that the painting overflows onto the frame.

Then there are a few examples of Rivera's work, and you see immediately how, as unfair as it was, as personally tragic as it was, Rivera's concern for events and people outside of his own life make him incalculably greater than Kahlo. That didn't give him the right to treat her so badly. Unfortunately, it does give us the reason to spend more time with his work than with hers.

The Most Happy Fellas in the Whole Napa Valley (burp!)

Yes, that was us, in a splendid car-and-driver on our way out of San Fran. The trip was so quick that we didn't even get to stop at an In-n-Out for lunch; the driver called for directions to the one nearest to Yountville and drove us to it, making an expensive little extra stop tha La Skol referred to as "The $80 cheeseburger". And that is nowhere near the stupidest thing I've ever done with money. Lifetime? Not even close. But, while our I-n-O lunch might not have been worth $80, I've paid $30 for worse in New York and various places.

Some of my corespondents have been urging me to try I-n-O if The French Laundry was not good enough for me. 

Maybe so. 

I will say that I had no complaints with I-n-O service, consisting as it did of a loud conversation with an intercom followed by a brief financial exchange with a teenager.

 And then we had our burgers: the Single for La Skol and the Double-Double, with fries and small chocolate shake, for myself. (Our charming driver wasn't hungry). Oh Joy! It was one of the best, most honest burgers in my memory, good to the last shred of lettuce and crumb of bun. The meat tasted like meat you would buy and cook yourself, which I can't say of McD or BK. The garnishes were fresh; another nice change. The fries were underdone, nothing special, but the chocolate shake tasted like real ice cream and real milk.

I felt it more in that fancy car on Route 29 than I had felt it before: La Skolnique's opinion that "everything tastes better in California", as if "it's got the sun inside it". Yes, absolutely, and in my vacation there was no better example than the In-n-Out burger. Oh, unless it was...

Two Other Yountville Meals

After checking into our palatial accommodations (she at The Villagio and self at The Vintage, a couple of super-luxe resorts which bracket Washington Street, the main drag of the town), La Skol found the pool (a wonderful, over-the-top Tuscan extravaganza in which you constantly imagine you'll see Caligula and his posse resting up from a hard day's orgy) and I wandered the water gardens, where I expected to find van Gogh, Picasso and possibly Manet looking picturesque by their easels (or grabbing the side of their head and trying to staunch the flow of blood.)

By evening we were hungry, and got ourselves a late reservation at Redd's. And this is what we ate:

That's a salad of heirloom tomatoes with, you guessed it, Little Gem lettuce. And California sunshine. So good, La Skolnique and I both ordered it.

Thus was my Tasting of Cold Foie Gras, maybe the best foie gras I had on the whole trip (and I ate it at five different meals, including once, flawlessly, at The French Laundry). On the left we have Mousse, with a dark rich cherry gastrique and a pile of frisee to cut the richness; in the middle is Terrine, with a mound of nectarine compote atop; and to the right is le Torchon, rolled in pistachio nuts. The little red fruits are Bing cherries; there are a few  whole candied pistachios on le Torchon.

Thoughtful food; this is it. The dish is not about the large servings of this rich, expensive ingredient; it's about the contrasts, the way the light and fluffy mousse practically melts off your fork and onto your tongue, the way the terrine is a little chilly, then warmed by the not-too-sweet nectarine, and the way the torchon, which is straight, cleaned foie marinated, rolled into a neat tube and poached before it is cooled and rolled in nuts, gives you the real mineral taste of the stuff itself; the texture is like good salumeria, a little resistant to the bite but then filling your mouth with complicated tastes.

The service at Redd's was wonderful, warm and welcoming, even though we stayed until past closing (we didn't notice how empty the place was, and no one was interrupting us at the end of what must have been a very busy Sunday).

Well, you know where we ate on Monday night, and enough said.

Tuesday, the last night of the vacation, found us at Jeanty, a pleasant Bistro which felt just right for our starting to get back to the real world. By this time we weren't taking pictures or writing tone poems about the food; we just enjoyed the good bistro specialties and the friendly service, as well as the Napa Valley pleasantry of a personal heater over each table.

All right. All right. I've FORGOTTEN what we ate.

And Finally, Friends 

The very best thing of all is that I met so many nice people, some just for a conversation and some for real friended-on-Facebook friendship. I've already mentioned Joe Pak and Jenny Lam, who were wonderful dinner companions at The French Laundry, and who are probably wondering why on earth I'm making such a big deal over what was really a very pleasant dinner. (Just not as good as I thought the service should be!)

Another new friend, although not to La Skolnique, is her pal Paul, who picked us up in San Fran and took us for a wonderful day at Berkeley, including a sort of potluck lunch at the fabulous Berkeley Bowl, a grocery store which I recommend even to travelers who do not have a kitchen. Paul is a great guy and even took us to a Nepalese restaurant in Bernal Heights, an old nabe of his which, except for the hilly streets, reminded me of some of Queens' best residential/foodie neighborhoods. Paul knows even more about old movies than I do, and I hope to see more of him.

And now, I think I'd better have the staff of The French Laundry have the last word: